Lincoln Declaration Of Independence Rhetorical Analysis

o Lincoln 's reputation as the great emancipator rests largely on his emancipation proclamation, an executive order which went into effect on January 1st, 1863. This order ostensibly freed all the slaves in territory currently rebelling against the United States, i.e. in areas where the US government had no authority to free slaves. This is rather like the United States announcing that, from here on out, North Korea would be ruled by Lady Gaga. Sure, it 's a great idea, but it 's not really your jurisdiction. In areas where the US did have the authority to free slaves--the border states and some of the areas of the Confederacy that had been effectively conquered and occupied by federal troops, those slaves were not freed. So Lincoln

At the beginning of the Civil war in 1861, President Lincoln was reluctant to move against slavery. He believed that the solution to slavery and the long term race problem in the United States was to support the compensated emancipation of slaves followed by their colonization outside the country. Lincoln also wanted to eliminate slavery with the Border States in order to stop those states from joining the confederacy and achieving those States loyalty. He also wanted the Border States to accept compensation because rejecting the proposal meant the risk of getting nothing. (Chapter 11 pg. 238-239)

Historically, Lincoln was mainly focused on the idea of keeping the Union unified and he felt that the only way to accomplish it was through abolishing slavery. Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong and how it was the reason for the war because: “One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves… [and they were] localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest (Stanza 3).” With regard to Lincoln’s speech, he always chose his words carefully to portray the purpose of the Civil War referring that the slaves were part of the nation and all the government had a job to keep all the slavery together and not spread. On the contrary, Lincoln was against slavery because he didn’t want it to expand further and not let it spread to the newly formed state of America which was

Although Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president in 1860 and 1864, would come to be remembered as the Great Emancipator, he did not begin his presidency with the goal of freeing slaves. The fact that he opposed to slavery also did not make him believe in racial equality. Before he became president, he did not yet think that blacks should be given all the civil rights such as voting or serving on juries. He simply wanted to preserve the Union and to build a strong federal government. However, people got him all wrong. The northerners voted for him in 1860 hoping that he would free the slaves and the Southern States seceded from Union because they had misunderstood Lincoln’s original intent of maintaining the Union. Faced with different points of view, Lincoln was such a talented politician that when it come to

For Howard Zinn, the Declaration of Independence seemed, abnormal. He is convinced that the Declaration was written for selfish reasons. He observes that the upper-class needs to induce the lower class. “It seemed clear to the educated, upper-class colonists that something needed to be done to persuade the lower class to join the revolutionary cause, to direct anger against England.” Alternatively, Bernard Bailyn has a disparate interpretation. Bailyn is convinced that the Declaration is written for ideological reasons. “The Declaration of Independence represents the colonists’ deepest fears and beliefs.” Quite frankly, they are both correct.

1.) Jefferson states the reasoning behind the writing of the Declaration of Independence. His reasoning is to declare the causes that propel a group toward separation.

The word “declare” is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “announcing or expressing something publicly”. On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson, along with the Second Continental Congress, announced the independence of the American colonies from British rule. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson expresses the humanitarian foundations for an autonomous government due to the tyrannical British king in order to unite the colonists together in their battle for freedom.

This part of the Declaration of Independence is one of the most important parts, aside from the preamble. It declares the importance of stating why the colonies must separate from Britain. The colonist believed that all men are created equally, and therefore have equal rights. The Declaration states that the United States has had enough suffering under tyranny, and that the colonies have the right to separate themselves from the bad government and form their own.

Marcus Garvey used structure to expose the hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence to make the African Americans realize they would never be treated equally in America and they should start a separate black-led nation in Africa. The Declaration of the Rights of the Negro People of the World included demands that the colonist had and the blacks had. The reason for doing this was to show the Declaration of Independence did not help the blacks because they still had the same issues. He wanted to prove to the black people that they deserved better and that America could not offer the blacks what they deserved. When the Declaration of Independence was written the colonists were treated poorly by the King of Great Britain now the black people

Lincoln didn 't believe slavery was morally correct. There was one large problem with that; it had already been approved by the highest law in the current United States: the Constitution. This law was also approved by the Supreme Court of the time. The nation’s founding fathers, who also struggled with addressing slavery, did not flat-out write the word “slavery” in the Constitution, but they did many things include key clauses that were protecting the institution, including a fugitive slave clause and also the three-fifths clause, which allowed Southern states to count slaves as “partial people” for the purposes of representation in the federal government.

The abolishment of slavery is one that Abraham Lincoln is all to familiar with. From the time the man first walked into office he was hounded by people wanting to end the ‘people of service and labor.’ That description is one Lincoln wrote about in his Emancipation Proclamation, instead of saying, ‘blacks’ or ‘slaves’. When Lincoln took office, his main goal was to reunite the Union. He wanted to make sure that no matter what he did, that no part would secede from the Union. There was warfare, there was struggle, and there were unhappy people but the Emancipation Proclamation made its way to the Union on January 1, 1863.

Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer and give him the advantage of being able to pick up information quickly and retain it (Lincoln as commander, 2009). Once Lincoln took on the role as the Commander in Chief, he was determined to have a strong army and emancipating the slaves would assist him in accomplishing that goal. Initially, when General John Fremont issued military orders freeing the slaves, Lincoln was opposed to because he felt freeing the slaves would agitate the Southern states (Lincoln as commander, 2009). In addition, Lincoln wanted to stay in alliance with the Unionist and anti-abolitionist for war purposes so he wanted to keep his plans for emancipation under wraps. Lincoln was a man that always saw slavery as inhumane but because he took the oath to follow the constitution, which protected property and slave were considered property, Lincoln felt as though he had to abide by it, as those before him (Nagler, 2009). When tension between the North and South began to thicken, Lincoln decided the emancipation was mandatory to win the war against the South. “We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued” (Lincoln as commander, 2009). Though Lincoln has always been against slavery, to some he did not act on freeing the slaves until he knew it would benefit, and forming a strong Army was what he

Lincoln’s stance on slavery was a bit confusing for me to understand, but I think what he wants for the most part is to stop the spread of slavery. He believes the state's shouldn’t be divided, they should be either all free or all slave states, according to what Douglas quoted Lincoln on saying. Lincoln is okay with allowing slavery to continue, if only with the idea that it will be coming towards extinction in the future and end completely eventually, and not spread into new territories. He says that the Constitution wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t kept slavery in, but the whole intention was to one day have slavery end, not let it be a permanent structure in the United States. Douglas on the other hand feels that each state should have the

Lincoln suggests that the institution of slavery be contained by preventing the spread of it to the new territories and Free states, although he had no interest in interfering with the already entitled slave states. He agrees that it was the right of the state to make its own decisions, not the federal government. Although Lincoln did not favor getting involved with abolishing slavery in the already declared slave states, he did favor total abolition in the distant future. He was first worried about stopping the expansion of slavery and then the next step to be taken would have been the "ultimate extinction" of it throughout the states. Lincoln did believe that every white man had no more equality than another. For this is one of the main reasons why at this time a resolution needed to be found in order to keep this equality in the new territories. Lincoln made a valid point in his speech that if slave holders were to settle in a new territory along with people opposed to slavery, which party has the right to decide what type of territory and future state it will be declared as? As for the rights of slaves, Lincoln agreed with Douglas that slaves did not have the same individual rights as everyone else, but he did believe that the liberties given under the Declaration of Independence involved such slaves. It is obvious that the Republicans of this time find slavery as being a "moral, social, and political wrong",

Lincoln states "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." Lincoln was strictly for the Union and if he could save the Union and end slavery he would, but his first thoughts were for the Union, and only the Union. He deals with slavery in this manner because he does not want to upset or cause turmoil in the South. Even though the Civil War was going on, he wants it to end and the Union to be whole.